ode to joy

our beloved ms joy has decided to resign from dandelion hill. this has been a difficult thing for me to come to terms with. dandy is our baby. we created this beautiful program together and to think of going on without her took me some time to get used to.

we have now hired a wonderful and loving teacher, ms jessica. i know that she will blossom in our program and bring new life and wonder with her presence.

still, i am a very sentimental person. i don't think it has fully hit me yet honestly. it will be a tough transition for me but i'm not letting her go too far! her son will still be in our program and as a founding mother, she will stay on in a supportive role and as a beloved sub when needed.

she wrote this song for the kids to sing at graduation. my eyes filled with tears the first time i heard it:

it's been a good, good year my friends.
something begins when something ends.
our joyful raes we shine so bright,
forever friends of dandy light.

seriously, i love her.

beautiful dandelion fairies custom made by rjabinnik. i gave the yellow one to our new teacher, ms jessica. the wish flower went to ms joy.

make new friends, but keep the old.
one is silver and the other gold.

wip and wash wednesday

my post for both of these themes (is that what i call them?) is a bit loose this week. i thought i'd share anyways!

with may faire freshly behind me and the last day of school tomorrow, i really have no crafty works in progress. *gasp!* well, ignoring the long term unfinished projects at the bottom of my basket. we won't talk about those.

so, instead i am sharing a project that sienna finished recently. she wanted to make a special present for her friend, anna mae's, birthday. she came up with a fairy house with a rug, a fairy, and a gnome. she scavenged this beautiful piece of bark on a recent romp in the woods. her dad helped her with the house and since she insisted on hot glue (who doesn't love instant gratification?) i helped with the glue. otherwise, concept and execution were entirely her own. seriously makes my heart sing!

the sweet little *helicopter* wings unfortunately crumbled upon delivery. sienna took a positive attitude and told anna mae that she could pick the next wings herself!

if you have not peeked in on gardenmama's *wash wednesday*, you should do so! she is showcasing the beauty of the clothesline.

in our class, during watercolor painting, we use cotton cloths to dry our paintbrushes after we *give them a bath*. here's what they look like at the end of the year after many a painting session. they are spread out on our mini clothesline to dry before they are folded and put away. the children are always involved in this, as with all the watercolor prep and clean up.

happy hump day! ;)

may faire

mr crowe, ms rae, and ms joy sing songs to accompany the may pole dances.

(wo)manning our booth. ;)

jean's flower printing was such a huge hit! wish i had taken time to do this myself!

unfortunately, i do not have a whole lot of pictures of the may faire to share. i was such a whirlwind of behind the scenes coordinating that i didn't feel like i really experienced the festivities. not to worry though! we had a huge turnout! much more than we have ever had before and a wonderful time seemed to be had by all. i was so very, very humbled by the hard work and love that my families put into this production. i feel incredibly blessed to have such wonderful people supporting our program and our local waldorf community.

now i am so thankful that it is over!! ;) it literally took me some time to recover from the lack of sleep and improper nutrition in the days and weeks leading up to and then the heat exhaustion of the actual day. i feel much better now.

this is our last week of school. two more days. sadly, seven of our children our out with the chicken pox!! crazy, eh? we have postponed our graduation ceremony. hope all our little friends are feeling better real soon.

life is so very, very full this merry month of may! there is little time to share all that i would love to share with you. i couldn't resist sharing these pics of my sweeties all dressed up for a special date with mommy (lucky me!). we enjoyed a quick bite at kids eat free night at the health food store and then we were off to a show! we saw imagine, an arts extravaganza. loads of artists and musicians worked with students at a local school to create quite a production. we stayed for hours and it was still going strong when we exited!

may faire is sunday and our last week of school is next week. looking forward to a quieter june!

LEAF

main stage and just a portion of the festival grounds.

we spent the weekend at the lake eden arts festival (leaf). this was their 30th anniversary, the festival is held twice a year. prior to that it was known as the black mountain music festival. i spent many a season there during my formative middle and high school years. we have gone once as a family since our return to these hills. it was a lot of work though as jasper was still very young.

we went for it again this year. despite our domestic distress (yes, there is a bit of that), we managed to have a wonderful weekend together in this magical setting. this festival is huge, but not overly populated. it is located in such a beautiful and magical setting that is both awakening and nostalgic for me. it is very family oriented with a newly expanded kids village featuring two stages. there are acts from all over the world and the exposure it gives the children is incomparable.

serious dancing feet!

one of our favorite acts this year were the blind boys of alabama. this one was well past the kids bedtime, so i didn't get to see the whole show and the camera batteries were dead but they were amazing!! hope to have the opportunity to see them again.

the jabali african acrobats were a definite family favorite. we saw them twice. jasper started replicating their moves right away. showing off their acrobatics has been a popular pastime with the littles since our return.
the spring festival always falls on mother's day weekend. i couldn't have had a better day with my sweet children! so nice to be around so many other families and to have perfect *strangers* come up and greet you with a warm mother's day greeting.
the most amazing moment of the day for this momma came when we had the opportunity to experience the music and warmth of kinobe and soul beat africa from uganda. it is incredible to me how some musicians travel the globe sharing so freely from their heart with people of every color and every age. the way they connect with children so easily and that the children are so open to them because they feel the love pouring right out of them. that was the case with these beautiful people. they spent a good deal of their show interacting with the children, bringing them up on the stage (including my two) and coming out into the crowd with them. when they finished they received a standing ovation and a request for an encore. as they returned to stage, this song was less interactive and they were performing for us. jasper was having none of that though. he pulled and tugged so hard to get me to take him on stage. he fussed and fought trying to pull me right up there. as soon as the song was winding down, he made a break for it. he jumped on stage and made a beeline for this man and gave him a bear hug. with all the love in his heart, he scooped jasper right up into his arms. the music was still playing softly and the beautiful man (wish i knew his name! kinobe is the man on the left.) was chanting a simple word, something like *samba*. he would say it and put the mike to jazzy's mouth and jasper would just look at him. this went on several times until the man figured it out. he switched his mantra to *mommy* and jasper chanted right along with him! tears fell from my eyes. it was the sweetest mother's day present ever. when he brought him back to me, in arms, he embraced us both and gave me a big kiss. oh, the love!
i have so enjoyed reading all of your mother's day posts! what a truly wonderful gift we have been given, this transformative journey of motherhood. i am blessed to *know* of each of you and to share in the inspiration and love we all spread.

p.s. more pictures can be found in my flickr photostream. i will have a great camera one day, darn it!

happy may day!!

hope you all enjoy a lovely may day, blessed beltane, or whatever you may or may not be celebrating today. yesterday, i took such nice step-by-step photos to share a little tutorial with you on our may day *baskets*. i also took a sweet picture for our outdoor challenge of a fun fort we made. then, in my typical multi-tasking fashion, i was trying to upload my pictures while talking on the phone and checking my e-mail (really don't like that i do that, but that's another post altogether!). naturally, i got a little ahead of myself and ended up deleting all of my photos!! surprisingly, this is the first time i have ever deleted my photos and fortunately, i have been dumping them regularly so it was just the pics from yesterday that are gone.

so, i wasn't meant to share that with you this year, maybe next. we had a lot of fun making these though. my favorite part is sienna sneaking about hanging them on door knobs! she is so sweet and loves to give to our neighbors. she sewed the blue and yellow flower herself and that special one if for ms joy (hope you don't read this before we get it to you!).

enjoy a wonderful day wherever you are!!